I think Balatro succeeded where other indieslop games failed because there is a clear separation between the familiar basic mechanics and the elaborate scoring system.
Other attempts to put a spin on classic games mutate the core gameplay too much and create something that is no longer familiar, and probably damage aspects of the original game that were good in the process.
Stone cards are Balatro's worst feature because they don't align with the base poker hands.
Games based on chess tend to introduce new "innovative" elements that are highly disruptive.
Often all that remains is "pieces moving in a familiar pattern on a board", and the accumulative strategic focus of real chess is trashed.
I even consider Chess960 to be bad. I think the familiarity of the starting position is important.
Crazyhouse is fun albeit.
I wonder if it would be possible to build a scoring layer on top of chess without damaging the core gameplay.
The following elements should be sacred:
- Turn based
- Starting position and pieces
- 8x8 board
- Ruleset
If so much of the game must remain unchanged, what is there left to vary and innovate upon?
Balatro still allowed the deck to change from the regular 52 cards, creating new hands like 5 of a kind, which sacrifices some of Poker's integrity.
However, I think chess is different to poker and requires the elements listed above.
The element that can be varied is the enemy AI.
Balatro creates "chips", "mult", "hand level" out of thin air, so I could similarly create new elements that form a system that allows some degree of influence over opponent AI.
Playing against the strongest Stockfish is really unfair and impossible for a human to win, but what if you could dynamically handicap it as the game progresses?
Having a complex handicap system seems like it would be more interesting than playing against weaker levels of a chess AI, which isn't very fun.
Chess skill varies wildly, but learning to use the new handicap system would be a learning curve for all players.
The ascension system could simply be the AI's depth scaling up.
Relic chess interaction ideas (it will also interact with currency and relic systems):
Relics that trigger upon castling, relics that incentivise preventing enemy castling (hard).
Trigger upon capture.
Trigger upon pawn promotion (very hard).
Trigger upon en passant (very hard).
Trigger upon check.
Trigger upon equal/lesser/greater material score (e.g. pawn = 1, knight = 3, etc).
Trigger upon X piece moved/captured.
Alter AI depth.
Alter AI to prefer/dislike moving certain piece types.
Alter AI to over/undervalue specific pieces (NNUE evaluation). Permanent.
Alter AI to over/undervalue control of specific squares. Permanent.
Entirely block moving to a specific square for one turn (expensive, might have to limit this so it doesn't assist checkmates).
Entirely block a specific piece from moving for one turn (see above).
Alter other AI stats related to aggressiveness, liking to trade, or other variables I'm unaware of?
Clearly, "trigger" should be a keyword mechanic.
I would limit relics that give information to the player, and instead focus on depriving the AI of information.
Maybe the player could have a relic that shows them the computer evaluation, or shows the enemy's threat move, but showing the player what move they should make is uninteractive.
The biggest challenge in implementing this would be creating a custom chess engine that I can dynamically influence, but maybe there are enough resources available that this would not be prohibitive. I don't think it would be possible to just use Stockfish, but I want something of comparable strength that beats all humans.
I know a lot of people make their own chess engines, but I don't know how difficult it is to approach Stockfish or if it's easy for a hobbyist to get there nowadays.
NNUEs are pretty simple, so it would be nice to make use of that.
To make the gameplay robust, I guess it the game speed would decrease on lower end computers, since cutting the AI off based on a time limit would be unfair, but hopefully I could get it fast enough that I don't have to worry about this too much?
Another issue is that it would be difficult for the player to observe how the player's relics influence the AI, and they may feel cheated if the AI makes a move they attempted to guard against.
Visual representation of certain pieces/squares being buffed/debuffed could help here, as well as showing top moves before the move plays out.
Could also visualise NNUE evaluations.
I'd also have visible stats for depth and amount of pruning.
I'm not sure if it would be good to always show the overall AI evaluation score, or only if you purchase a relic. I'm thinking always show it, because that means it can be used to trigger other relics.
It will also be difficult to balance, but at least it's safe to assume that any alteration to the AI should weaken it to some degree, even if it's slight.
A lot of iteration on concepts would be required to make this a reality.